The 71-year-old actor and former Shattuck-St. Mary's teacher Lynn Seibel says he is not guilty of sexually abusing students, MPR reports. MPR spoke with Seibel in a jailhouse interview, his first since he was charged in October.

He told MPR he prays for acquittal so he can return to his acting career in California.

"I'm still innocent and I've been incarcerated for seven months," he told MPR.

Seibel told MPR he misses his job at the Faribault boarding school, where he was a drama teacher for more than a decade. Seibel started at the school in 1992 and was fired in 2003 after child pornography was discovered on his computer, although police were not told about it, the Star Tribune reported.

"There's nothing nobler and finer in the world than being a teacher," he told MPR. "It's the greatest job you can have."

Abuse at the school, including "naked dance parties," was known but not reported, MPR reported as part of an investigation last week.

About 14,000 pornographic files/images were on his computer in 2003, and a number appeared to be illegal child pornogaphy, according to a forensic examination, the Pioneer Press reported. Seibel was teacher of the year at the school for the 1993-94 school year, the newspaper reports.

Seibel was also a professional actor who appeared in mostly bit parts in a number of 1980s and 1990s hit television shows and films, including "Knots Landing," "Highway to Heaven," "Murder She Wrote," "Dallas," "The Incredible Hulk," "General Hospital," and "The Young and The Restless," according to IMDb.

Here's his website.

Here's Seibel in a scene as a naked professor from "The Big Bang Theory":